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“What a tremendous blessing! You have come into our life just in time to defend our faith. We are growing from your great work. God bless you all.”

~ Beth, Boston, Massachusetts

Do Jesus' words from the cross "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" mean that God the Father abandoned his Son?

Full Question

Do Jesus' words from the cross "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" mean that God the Father abandoned his Son even though, as God, he could have helped him?

Answer

If someone were to say, "I pledge allegiance to the flag" or "Our Father who art in heaven," most people could either finish the quotation or prayer or at least understand the ideas being expressed. That is because certain quotations in our culture, whether secular or religious, are known and even memorized because of their importance.

This was true of the psalms in Jesus time. He needed only to say the first line, and most Jews would have known the rest, or at least the message.

Jesus was quoting Psalm 22, a messianic psalm that vividly describes the agony the suffering servant would endure. God the Father did not abandon his Son in his Son’s suffering but allowed him in his humanity to experience the sense of divine abandonment that humans often feel during times of need, and especially when in sin. Just as we often feel that God has abandoned us when we are suffering (even though this isn’t the case), so the Son of God in his humanity experienced that.aspect of human suffering as well. He died for our sins, and the weight of those sins—and thus the feeling of abandonment—must have been exceedingly heavy at that point.

By quoting this psalm, Jesus shows that he is the fulfillment of that prophecy and that he will be vindicated, which is evident in the psalm’s triumphant ending.

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There’s a popular version of the Protestant Reformation that goes something like this: By the sixteenth century, the Catholic Church had become thoroughly corrupted. Its doctrines were tainted by superstitions and false “traditions of men”; its leaders were depraved, forsaking the gospel to indulge their worldly greed and lust; and its practices kept Catholics living in ignorance and fear.
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Chances are you’ve heard this story before. But it’s just a big myth, says historian Steve Weidenkopf.
In The Real Story of the Reformation, Weidenkopf dismantles the mythical narrative about the two pivotal figures of the Protestant Reformation—or rather, Revolution, because what they wrought was not a reform of the Church but a radical break from it. He replaces that narrative with a true account of Luther and Calvin’s ideas, their actions and character, and their disastrous legacy for the modern world.

"I should not believe the Gospel except on the authority of the Catholic Church."

~ Augustine of Hippo, convert, bishop, theologian, Father and Doctor of the Church, Saint; endorsing the position that the promulgation of Scripture, the preservation of its integrity and identity, and the explanation of its meaning flows from the authority of the Catholic Church.